


A New Life: A SciencePilot Story

by irisirene



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 18:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9915416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisirene/pseuds/irisirene
Summary: Bodhi wakes up in a foreign medical bay, to find someone he'd never thought he'd see again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All characters and settings belong to Disney and George Lucas, not me. This is my first Bodhi/Galen story and I'm still trying to get the feeling for them. Constructive criticism welcome as well as any spotted grammatical or spelling errors welcome!

The smell of smoke. Pain. Soft toned voices expressing concern and offering comfort. The slowly steady beeping of machinery. With each day, Bodhi Rook was aware of more, though he didn’t realize it. Finally, though, after what had felt like an eternity and also paradoxically no time at all, he opened his eyes to the brightest room he’d ever seen—and winced. The lighting was so bright that it took several tries for Bodhi to successfully convince his eyes that they needed to stay open so that he could see where the Hell he was at, and even then he had to squint. 

As he looked around, gleaming white and chrome surfaces stared back at him, various monitors showing his vitals—which, from what he could tell, were pretty good—and two people just outside the door of his hospital room, though he couldn’t see their faces in the distance. With a shock, Bodhi realized that he was alive, he had to be if he was recovering in a hospital. Thoughts immediately swarmed his head; concern about the others and who else had made it out, concern about where the Hell they were now, and concern about his own health. The last thing he remembered was a damn grenade coming his way, if he survived entirely intact that would have been a miracle. Panicked, Bodhi looked down at his own body, breathing heavily as he saw that he was bandaged nearly from shoulders to toes in bacta-coated bandages, but, he had four limbs. Swallowing hard, he tested the movement of each, gasping in pain when the movement pulled at the healing burns covering a great deal of his body.

A new shrill beeping filled the room soon after, causing the people waiting by his door to enter, presumably to check on him. One of them, evidently his healer, moved the fastest, running over to him and checking his vitals, before pushing a hypospray into the unburnt skin of his neck. “You’re alright, just relax. After two weeks in the bacta tank, you’ll be just fine. Your friend’s here, Mr. Rook,” she soothed, seemingly unaware that Bodhi had hardly even noticed her presence, that his eyes had been glued on the other person who had been standing outside his door. One person he’d be certain that he’d never have the good fortune to see again, a person he’d known to be very dead.

Galen Erso was just as handsome as Bodhi remembered him being, even though the scientist was still sporting injuries of his own, given the sling around his arm. He wasn’t wearing an Imperial uniform anymore—which told Bodhi that they were not on a core world, under the thumb of the Empire--, Galen was wearing a simple brown tunic and loose pants, exactly the sort of thing Bodhi had always imagined that he would wear, when given the choice to dress himself. His hair was long now, tied up into a low ponytail that had no business being so sexy, and was sporting almost a full beard. He was the most beautiful thing Bodhi had ever seen and he suddenly didn’t care if they’d survived—if this was the afterlife and Galen was here, Bodhi would be happy to stay.

“Galen,” Bodhi breathed in awed happiness, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper, but still audible as Galen moved close to the bed, nodding at the healer who discreetly disappeared back out of his door. Bodhi was grateful for the privacy as tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over his lash line when Galen took his hand in his, the scientist being so gentle not to jostle any of his injuries. “I thought you were dead. I thought Jyn said you’d died. Oh God, the others…!,” Bodhi spoke, growing more frenzied with each new thought that occurred to him. 

“Shh, Bodhi. Bodhi, it’s alright. Everything’s okay. Everyone’s okay. I’m okay,” Galen rushed to assure, one of his large hands coming up to brush away Bodhi’s tears with its calloused warmth. “The Alliance got the Death Star Plans and when the Empire lost the battle at Scarif, they had just enough time to send people for search and rescue. Chirrut, Baze, Jyn, Cassian, and K2, they’re okay.” The words weren’t detail enough, Galen knew that as he said them, but with Bodhi recovering, there would be plenty of time to go into detail, especially considering how long he’d have before any of the medical staff cleared him to do even light duty. “I’m not going to lie, Bodhi. It’s a miracle of the Force that you’re alive. You’ve been badly injured. We were all worried that you were going to…But, we managed to get you here to the Cloud City and they were…sympathetic. You spent two weeks in a bacta tank and it was touch-and-go, there for a while,” he remarked, the pain of almost losing Bodhi echoing in his voice and expression, his brown eyes soft and shining.

Still processing everything, Bodhi squeezed Galen’s hand that was covering his, just allowing his eyes to roam over Galen and rememorize each and every detail. There was more grey in his hair and beard now, he noticed, but there was a vibrancy to Galen that he’d never seen before. Despite the man’s various nicks and cuts and his injured shoulder, Galen looked alive and robust. This was what freedom looked like on Galen, Bodhi realized, his breath catching at the implications. They were both free of the Empire. The Death Star may still be a looming threat, but it was fallible now, fragile. There was hope for both them and the Galaxy at large. Bodhi had so many questions.

“What about you?,” he managed to croak after his thoughts seemed to settle a little more, sorting the giant pile of questions in his head into two categories: can wait and can’t wait to know. The majority of the questions were ones that could wait, but the others were questions about Galen and therefore had to be answered with all the speed Bodhi was capable of having. Galen seemed to sense this, his lips turning up at the corners in a small smile. At his question, though, Galen’s small smile became slightly ashamed. Bodhi’s eyebrows raised. He’d never seen that particular look on his lover’s face before.

“I’m ashamed to admit that I played dead. I feared what the Alliance would do to me, to you or Jyn, if they found out about us. It was easier to disappear,” Galen began, his gaze drifting to the linoleum tile and away from Bodhi’s big-eyed gaze. “I did pass out, but I awoke and made my way to the nearest town. Luckily, the locals bought my story of being the only rebel to make it out of that battle by foot. Thank Force you and I used to go climbing on our days off. I used our old trail to make it out. From there, I tried to go back to Lah’mu, but when I heard about what happened at Scarif, I headed straight for the Alliance,” he continued, shame and guilt flooding his tone so much that it made Bodhi’s heart ache. He squeezed Galen’s hand again, stroking his fingers over Galen’s thicker ones. “I’m so sorry, Bodhi. I was so afraid and I failed you, failed Jyn. I’ve already told her that I plan to make it up to both of you, make up for the time I’ve lost with you both.” 

Galen’s words had the affect of a solemn vow, clearly a promise to do better than he had perceived himself to have done. It was beautiful, though unnecessary, in Bodhi’s book. “You don’t have to be sorry. I’m glad you did whatever you did to live, Galen. It almost killed me to think that you were dead, that I would never see you again. I don’t know about how Jyn feels and I won’t presume to pretend I do, but I don’t feel like you abandoned us. You just saved the Galaxy, Galen. It took you twenty years and so much pain to do it, but you’ve saved us all from the Empire. And, you survived. I survived,” Bodhi replied, as impassioned as he could be with exhaustion and mild sedation still pulling at him. The fogginess of his brain was precisely why it took him a few extra moments to realize the implications of something else that Galen had said. Surprised, Bodhi’s mouth dropped open a fraction. “Wait a minute, did you tell Jyn about…you and me?,” Bodhi asked, his tone just slightly higher than it was a second ago as he tried to imagine that conversation and failed.

His earlier shame and guilt temporarily forgotten, Galen had to laugh at Bodhi’s surprise. “Yes, of course I did. Though, you should know she knew before I even could get the words out. She likes you and she approves, so you don’t have to worry about being on her bad side,” Galen remarked, another smile forming on his face, genuine happiness filtering through easily. It was clear that he was happy that Jyn approved so easily of their rather unconventional relationship. It could have gone either way, given that Bodhi wasn’t that much older than her, as well as her personal tragedies. “She says you can be a lot like her mother, that she understands why you. She’s been here, too. So has everyone else.” He gestured over to the rolling tray table that was covered in makeshift cards and even some intricately folded paper flowers that Bodhi marveled. There was only one was person he’d ever known that could be that dexterous to make such tiny folds and his suspicions were confirmed when he measured Galen with a look, only for the other man to look away shyly for a moment.

“So, to recap: everybody’s okay, the Alliance has the plans to the Death Star, you’re alive, I’m alive, and we’re more or less…free. Is that right?,” Bodhi asked with a levity he couldn’t quite define. It might have been the lure of a quiet, unassuming life with Galen, or just the knowledge that the Empire was no longer literally breathing down their neck, but whatever the feeling behind it—they were free. No matter that there might still be some trouble for them, both of them being defectors in a galaxy where the Empire still reigned supreme through their hatred, they would be able to have some semblance of a life, now.

“That’s right. We’re free. Any thoughts as to where that leaves us?,” Galen asked, picking up some levity of his own.

Grinning, Bodhi managed to raise their joined hands to his chapped lips with minimum difficulty and a repressed grimace, kissing Galen’s warm hand softly. “I’d say that leaves us right about here?,” he offered nervously, pointedly tracing an imaginary line around the base of Galen’s left ring finger. His eyes were wide with anxiety and hope, his hair tucked into a messy bun and his beard unkempt, and Bodhi was the most beautiful person Galen had ever laid eyes on.

“Yes, Bodhi. Oh, yes. As long as you’ll have me.”


End file.
